How to Prepare Your CoffeeEspressino
What you need
Ingredients run from the top of the cup to the bottom; the last item is the bottom layer. Values are normalized to a true 100% stack.
- Grind
- Fine — espresso grind
- Water temperature
- Espresso 86–90°C; milk steamed to a light froth, about 55–60°C
- Total time
- 3 min
An espressino is Bari's own answer to the same question Venice's macchiatone and Piedmont's marocchino each answer differently: how do you soften an espresso with milk without turning it into a cappuccino? Bari's own regional newspaper puts a number on it — about 40 ml of hot, frothed milk stirred into a single shot, roughly four times a macchiato's spoonful and nowhere near a cappuccino's 100 ml — served small, with the coffee still clearly leading. It spread through central Puglia's bars between the 1980s and '90s, the same two decades that produced Venice's macchiatone and Puglia's own espressino independently, with no single credited inventor the way Silvia Bonotto is credited for the macchiatone.
Steps
Pull a single espresso into a small cup or glass
Bari's bars serve this in something closer to an espresso cup than a cappuccino cup — the whole point is a drink you can still call coffee first, not a scaled-down milk drink.
Steam a small amount of milk to a light froth
Around 40 ml is the measured figure Bari's own regional press gives — noticeably more than a macchiato's single spoonful, but a fraction of what a cappuccino or even a macchiatone takes.
Pour the milk into the espresso
Specialist coffee press describes the goal as keeping 'coffee as the protagonist' — the milk mellows the hit without covering it, unlike a cappuccino where milk and foam take the lead.
Serve immediately, without a dusting of cocoa
The clearest regional account draws the line here deliberately: no cocoa, which is exactly what separates an espressino from a marocchino or a macchiatone next to it on the same bar counter.
Cup ready
Time to enjoy your Espressino
Brewed the way they do it in Italy. What next?
Tips
- Order it as 'un espressino' in a Bari bar and expect a small glass or cup, not a cappuccino-sized one — it's a regional term that bars outside central Puglia may not recognise.
- If you've only ever seen the cocoa-dusted, roughly equal-parts version some general recipe sites describe, know that Bari's own regional press describes a plainer, less milky bar classic instead — treat the cocoa dusting as a documented but optional home addition, not the traditional default.
- Outside Puglia, order a macchiatone instead if a bar doesn't recognise the word — the two sit in a similar milk range and solve the same problem, just from different cities.
Common mistakes
- Pouring in cappuccino-sized milk — once the milk approaches a cappuccino's volume, coffee stops being the protagonist and the drink stops being an espressino.
- Assuming it always comes with cocoa — the regional press account that gives the clearest quantities explicitly leaves cocoa out and uses its absence to tell the drink apart from its milkier, cocoa-dusted neighbours.
- Confusing it with a marocchino — a marocchino builds in cocoa and foam as visible, stacked layers in a small glass; an espressino is a plainer, single-pour mellowing of the shot.
Variations
Within the Puglian tradition, the preparation above takes these familiar shapes:
Macchiatone
Venice's own version of the same idea — a bigger, cappuccino-cup pour of milk over a single espresso, invented independently in the same decades but in the north rather than Puglia.
FAQ
Is an espressino the same drink as Venice's macchiatone?
They sit in a similar milk range — more than a macchiato's spoonful, less than a cappuccino's third of a cup — but they're documented as separate regional inventions, not the same drink under two names. Both emerged independently in the 1980s and '90s, one in Bari and central Puglia, the other in Venice, and Puglians visiting other regions are reported ordering a macchiatone as the closest thing they can find rather than expecting their own word to travel. Kept here as distinct regional recipes for exactly that reason.
Does an espressino always come with a dusting of cocoa?
No — or at least, not by the clearest regional account. Bari's own local newspaper describes a cocoa-free drink and explicitly uses the absence of cocoa to separate it from the marocchino and the macchiatone. Some general recipe sites and travel guides instead describe a cocoa-dusted, close-to-equal-parts version nearer a small cappuccino. This recipe follows the regional press's plainer version as the bar classic, and treats the cocoa-dusted build as a real but optional variant rather than the default.
Where does the name come from, and who invented it?
It's a diminutive of 'espresso' — literally a 'little espresso.' Unlike Venice's macchiatone, which traces to one named Enel employee, no single inventor or café is credited for the espressino; sources converge on Bari-area bars experimenting with milk additions through the 1980s and '90s and agree only on the decade and the region, not on a founding moment.
The Atlas
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